BS Report: Remembering Ted Turner and Bobby Cox

It was quite unbelievable that last week, Ted Turner and Bobby Cox died three days apart. Now, both men were in their 80s. Both were in failing health, so it was not a surprise. But still, the fact that two men who were that tied together in the history of the Atlanta Braves died that close together was truly incredible. There are tons of stories that we could tell about both Ted Turner and Bobby Cox, of course, and they will be told over the next couple of weeks as we look back on their unbelievable lives.

But there is one thing that I think as far as tying the two together, that it is extremely important to share. 40 years ago, Ted Turner, of course, had CNN, he had TBS, and he was trying to build his empire. He was trying to buy CBS. He did buy the movie studio, of course, with all the movies that he could put on television.

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And he did not have time for the Braves. And he said, well, even the time that I’m spending on the Braves, I’m not doing a very good job because at that point in 1985, they were losing. So to try to kind of get the Braves on track, he decided to hire some baseball men. He brought back Bobby Cox.

Now, the unbelievable thing about it is he wanted to bring Bobby Cox back as a manager, which you have. Bobby Cox, a manager from 1978 to 1981, and fired him, but the timing was a little bit off. He had to wait on Bobby because Bobby at the time was the manager of the Toronto Blue Jays who won that American League East that year and were in the playoffs against Kansas City.

Well, so he couldn’t just hire Bobby Wright at the end of the 1985 season for 1986. He had to wait. And then he was worried that he was going to be shut out of getting a very good manager for the Braves. So Chuck Tanner, who had been fired on the last day of the regular season by the Pirates, was actually available.

So he decided Ted did to hire Chuck Tanner. And then after Toronto was eliminated in the playoffs by Kansas City, Ted went back to Bobby and said, hey, would you want to come back and be the general manager? Well, Bobby did, because he had a young family and he was still living in Marietta at the time. So he came back to be the tour manager of the Atlanta Braves.

That five year span that he was the general manager from 1985 86 and threw into the 1990 season, was perhaps the biggest part of Braves history that had a losing record on the major league field. They were awful. Nobody wanted the games. They were in last place. They had a horrible run in those years that Bobby was the general manager, but he made the decision while GM to go with pitching.

The first 20 years of Braves baseball not been very successful. They had only had seven winning seasons from 1966 to 1985, and they were known more as operating team because their stadium, Atlanta Fulton County Stadium, was known as the launching Pad. Everybody thought the pitchers could succeed there, and the only way the price would win is that they had a powerful lineup, but they didn’t win because they had no pitching.

Bobby said, let’s go with the pitching. So when he became the general manager, every trade that was made included a pitcher coming back to the Braves, all the drafts from 1986 through 1990. Except for Chipper Jones, of course, they were all focused on pitching, and that quantity of the pitchers is what helped that organization turn a corner. Now, in 1990, they were supposed to be good, but they failed and were struggling.

So Stan Kasten, who was the president of the team at the time, said, hey, Bobby, you got to go manage his team. And then the next all seasons, when John Charles came in to be the general manager and Bobby stayed in the dugout, of course, for the next 20 years. But in those five years where Ted Turner said, Bobby, I can’t do this anymore.

You have the decision making process. You had the last call. I don’t want to make any decisions of the Braves. And then Bobby doing what he did to make those decisions are what changed. The scope of this franchise. Braves haven’t been the same since because of how much success they’ve had since 1991. The last 35 years, they’ve had 28 winning seasons.

And of course, they’ve got the best record in baseball to this day. And it’s all because of Bobby Cox. So the tie in between these two is incredible. Ted Turner love Bobby Cox. He trusted them. He turned the organization over time. And the Braves became winners 40 years ago. And it’s still going on today.